Halloween '09 has come and gone--like an apparition, perhaps--only to leave us with some highlights of the event.

A jack-o-lantern in front of Synergy.

There were a bunch of good costumes, but overall I was a little disappointed in the lack of astoundingly creative get-ups that I had expected. Where is that Stanford ingenuity applied to something as trivial as a night of partying? In any case, those who did dress up in a noteworthy way deserve some sort of recognition, even it it warrants no material prize in return. Sorry!

After spending a solid hour duct taping cardboard boxes together to create part of my costume (as I seem to do every year) I certainly respect the hard work that goes into making a Halloween costume. As such, we at TUSB want to salute the ingenuity, originality, and creativity of this year's Halloween festivities with 2009's Halloween Costume contest.

Keep an eye out for awesome costumes, judged by whatever standards you deem appropriate, and email them to blogforstanford at gmail.com. Take a picture if you can, and you might see your suggestion and/or snapshot appear tomorrow in our follow-up post saluting the best and brightest of Stanford who pour their hearts into something that will meet its demise mere hours later at the hands/bodies/fake weapons of revelers enjoying the Halloween parties.

This popped up recently:
Parkour To Class Day

Imagine all us nerds running, vaulting over benches, somersaulting, jumping off the second floor of Meyer, and doing backflips off of palm tree trunks on our mundane way to class. Date has been set for Thursday, November 5.

If you've never heard of parkour, check the wikipedia article.

Columbus Day: The national holiday only relevant when it results in a day off from school. In fact, the only reason I realized it was Columbus Day at all was some chalking done around highly-trafficked parts of campus denouncing Columbus and the eurocentrism/abuse towards natives that followed his "discovery."

Click "continue reading" to check out the pictures of the chalking--some of which was hilarious and some of which was bitterly angry. In any event, we at TUSB support free speech in any of its forms, whether or not you think Columbus was a douchebag.

Merry Christmas from the Stanford Blog!

It seems like once you’re a graduate student, you no longer get holidays. The last couple of years I have spent my winter and spring breaks working on papers or research projects glad that I no longer had the distraction of classes, RA-ing, or TA-ing. It’s all part of the preparation for a professional life.

So what have I been up to this holiday season –

1. Writing the ol’ dissertation. Nothing makes you hate your topic more than being asked to rewrite a chapter.

2. Working on a paper that needs to get done by January.

3. Preparing my syllabus for next quarter.

4. learning to make refrigerator pickles.

Number 4 has been really fun for me, as I’ve developed an taste for pickled items. I like my pickles a little spicy, which is not always easy to obtain in a store bought version. Slightly pickled carrot sticks make a great snack when writing and even hubby, who is usually Mr Picky, eats them. Refrigerator pickles are easy to make, especially if you're on a budget.

(The most fun I will have all week...besides Christmas morning)

I don't know about other people, but winter break has not been super relaxing. Some of my friends at home will talk about how they have over a month off at home, and they've been playing a ton of poker or watching seasons of TV shows and sleeping in. Somehow I find that there's always a lot of work to be done over my winter breaks. I don't mind too much, but it is a little rough sometimes...

* Right after finals were over, I still had to type up a 10+ pg chapter for my honors thesis in the ethics of transplant organ allocation - which translated into a few rather late nights.

* As part of the men's gymnastics team, we stay on campus for a few extra days where we really ramp up the training intensity, including two-a-day sessions.

* Since I've been home, I've been helping my parents shop for teens and tweens, showing them how to use Picasa to organize their photos (again), and burning DVDs of youtube videos.

* I had a 2 hour Skype meeting for Gumball Capital, and we ironed out the tasks that needed to be done before break was over - for me that meant writing a newsletter about our progress in the past few months, and detailing the responsibilities of each department, in preparation for a new round of recruiting.

* Finally, I've been trying to get people to vote for my ChangeThis manifesto proposal - entitled "Success-Driven Philosophy: Achieving Clarity of Purpose" cowritten with a former teammate of mine. Both of us have studied philosophy at Stanford and we want to help people use philosophical examination to achieve success in personal and professional goals. Vote for it here!

What about you? How do you cope with the Winter Break? Do you just drop everything and relax? Or is it a chance to buckle down and get some work done?

A few people have posted videos of the fireworks and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy concert at Frost Amphitheater last Tuesday. Here's one for those who were out-of-town:

Yesterday, the Stanford Band also performed at the Redwood City 4th of July Parade. Lots of video of that if you're curious.

I’m in Greece. First, let me say I wish I’d pledged a sorority while at Stanford. At least, back in my mother’s day, the sisters had to memorize the Greek alphabet, and any sort of clue would be helpful at this moment. I didn’t learn anything about the language or the country before coming here (as I was graduating/looking for jobs/moving out of the dorms for the last two weeks).

Over the next several days, I’ll be going from Athens to Istanbul and seeing the islands of the Mediterranean/Aegean along the way. So far, this seems like a (way too) good way to recover from a Stanford education, and for those other currently-unemployed recent graduates who have a mother willing to take them, I highly recommend it.

For the past day I have been 1) in Athens and 2) without luggage. Supposedly the bags are coming soon, but as I write this, I’m still in the hotel robe.

I wore the hotel robe like a toga around Athens today. I put an olive wreath around my head to go with the daily theme—“Greek.”

You must know I’m kidding because, of course, it’s over 100 degrees here and too hot for the robe. I just wore the wreath.

The perfect Valentine's eCard for that special hippie co-op someone.

This Valentine's Day, why not make that "I love you" a sustainable one? We're not suggesting that you propose to anyone necessarily (that might be a little too sustainable)... but how about greening it up a little bit? Some easy things you can do today to say "Happy Valentine's Day, Valentine" in a greener way:

• Shower together. It saves water, and it's a sexy treat! Just, for the sake of your housemates, make sure you clean up afterwards. You can learn more about greening your sex life here and here.


• Cook 'em a nice, organic dinner. Head on down to Whole Foods on Emerson and pick up all the tasty organic ingredients you need. While you're at it, pick up some organic chocolates, too.


• Offset your loved one's carbon emissions for the next year. A $30 gift certificate is enough for them to purchase a TerraPass for their dorm room, and best of all, you can send these gift certificates via e-mail!


• Rent An Inconvenient Truth and watch it together. If you still haven't seen it, or watching Al Gore talk about global warming is a turn-on for either one of you, this documentary could be the perfect lead-in to foreplay. Or even foreplay itself. (Unfortunately, there are none available from Green as of this writing.)

For more, check here and here.

In other news, Google appears to have dropped the "L" from its name for Valentine's Day. "Googe"? That just sounds gross.

Maybe there was another chocolate-covered strawberry there and somebody ate it.